Sunday, July 22, 2012

In 1991 I attended the ELCA National Youth Gathering in Dallas with thousands of other high school kids from across the country and around the world for worship, service and Bible study. In addition to being fun and exciting, the trip expanded my view of and encounter with the church. I grew up in a small town in northern Minnesota, after all, where I was used to worshiping regularly with about 70 people. So I still get the chills when I remember saying the Lord’s Prayer with 27,000 “new friends” and hearing it echo throughout a convention center.

I remember how my parents told others at church about the trip later. They’d say, with an amused smile, that when they picked me up from the bus I didn’t stop talking during the two- and-a-half-hour drive home. “And then,” they’d add with a dramatic pause (and some relief), “she slept.”